


Silent the Tears

by Raynidreams



Category: Sense8 (TV)
Genre: Mother-Son Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-15
Updated: 2015-08-15
Packaged: 2018-04-14 21:13:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4580355
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Raynidreams/pseuds/Raynidreams
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Summary: Wolfgang's childhood.</p><p>Author's notes: I posted and deleted this the other night unsure of the content. I'm posting this altered version still unsure. <b>Warnings for child and spousal abuse. Also potential character death.</b></p>
            </blockquote>





	Silent the Tears

She scrubs him up clean, paying close attention to his face and hands. She curses softly at the small piece of dirt that will not budge from behind his one nail. Then his hair is clipped close to his head. He hates it - it makes his ears stand out. Whatever, it's groomed. Long hair shouldn't be encouraged. If she's to keep him, he has to look right.

When he's done, she feels jittery. Only yesterday, he was a baby. Impulsively, she presses a kiss to his ear. He squirms, laughs pitifully, and pulls away. Turning, he scans her face with eyes too old and a face too young. Her mirth dies. They hug from instinct: he hangs on more than usual before he informs her he’s going out. Inside her, there's not enough of an argument to convince him to stay, only words enough to encourage him to return before they get here.

The apartment is always tidier on days like this. Days after he's missed school and so an outsider comes. She reminds herself to tell them she’s going to get the window fixed as it only broke the month before, forgetting that the newspaper pasted over the crack bore a date.

The visit passes. Another comes and goes. The older he gets the bleaker and yet less interested their visitors become.

The door, tissue between them, feels like it could crumble under her hands as she recounts what she’s practiced one time. He's been ill. I've been ill. You know how it is? They nod. Understanding. Compassion from a thin lipped mouth. She knows she’s a number. How Wolfgang is a number. A number no one can afford and so they take the truth she offers. They no longer bother to check if the apartment is clean. As the door whispers close, she looks at him, their gazes on a level. His eyes are too big. Too hollow. Empty...hungry. She repeats to the shut door and him: Yes, he'll be in tomorrow. Of course. Yes, he'll have clothes that fit. Yes…yes…yes. Raising a child… it’s expensive. His uncle will lend us the money. No, no. I haven't seen his father. Yes, I'd tell the Polizei if I had.

It’s a lie. Sort of. Does seeing someone but not speaking count as seeing-seeing? She gets to her knees, blows him, and then he passes over some of the money he owes her for Wolfgang's upkeep. She doesn't think of it after. He’s the sick fuck, not her. She buys deli food that night. Wolfgang grins, saying how her cooking has improved. The shadows return only when he sees how much money she has and deduces correctly where it’s come from.  The leftovers consume the room.

The next day, his teacher's voice rings in her ears: You know your son got into a serious fight today? We need to take his behaviour under review.

Thin doors slam. Wolfgang shrugs when she confronts him. He's honestly bewildered why she's bothered. Fighting is what he does. It's what men do. Maybe it's because she's a woman that she doesn't understand. It must be that. He pats her gently, as if a palm to an already bruised face is what she needs.

When his father turns up again it's easier to let him fuck her, maybe this is what Wolfgang needs. Life before him hadn’t always been this way. She’d laughed. Her mind remembered even if her jaw could no longer shape the sound. Rose tinted glasses grey in dwindling light. He smokes after he comes. He wants food and to know who the people at the apartment were the week before. They had looked official. His hand strays towards his jacket pocket as he asks. There’s something metal inside. She recognises the play and doesn't lie. What's the point? Wolfgang missed school. He got in a fight she says. Her son's father laughs, and pulls his hand away from cheap lining. The bulge that forms around his fallen garment resembles his cock - a flaccid thing now the urge has gone. Fighting, he grins, that's the life!

He stays for a few weeks, setting things in order he states.  He has money: business is indeed doing well. Wolfgang’s expression is dark when she examines him over the dinner table night after night, but his belly is full, she argues silently. She walks him to the swimming pool and smiles and claps when he dives in, in a suit that fits. She longs for that freedom. That sense when water removes touch and hearing. When sight is extra clear but distant. She waves when he surfaces.

Too soon and not soon enough, his father is gone. He takes the money. She walks back from another failed job interview a month later and falls over. Wolfgang searches her face for the lie. After another week, she swallows her pride and whatever else she might have to. She hates going to Sergey. He always talks like this is life, rather than a version of it. Wolfgang tells her he wants to move when she gets back. That they should go somewhere where she and they can be...something. He's a smart boy. His hope shines so brightly that she even feels hers twitch.

Months later, Wolfgang going missing doesn't make it onto the news. It was to be expected, the authorities said. Like father like son. Bad apples and all that. She crumples to the floor. Begs Sergey. Begs him when she gets through on the telephone. She’d planned for them to go west, that was all. She denies beyond Germany completely. He tells her what is his is his. The little fucker came from him and she better do as she was fucking told.

Hearing her voice, Wolfgang manages to get half the way home before he finds him.

He can’t walk for a week after that.

When he makes his next escape, he’s smarter. Smart like she always told him he was. He opens the fragile door to where he used to live to find it empty.

Afterwards, Wolfgang calls out for her only once, in the depths, allowing water to fill his mouth like his first breath beyond her body. Breaking the skin, he emerges to see his father laughing and he chokes. Not soluble, he floats to where a harsh hand yanks him out onto a white tiled floor.


End file.
